I'm planning to design my own QSL cards, and have most of the "front" (photo portion) worked out--it's a nice photo my wife took of the pond in our backyard. I don't want to clutter it with too much text, though. Right now, it's got my call sign, name, and location, all in the bottom-right corner. I started to put the QSO information (call sign, date/time, freq, RST, and mode) in the upper-right corner, but I'm afraid things are going to get cluttered fast.

So--having not received but one QSL card with which to compare, I come to ask questions!

- Is it acceptable to put the QSO information on the back of the card, basically where a "normal" message would go on a traditional (non-QSL) postcard?- If so, should I put the vertical line down the middle, and put my return address in the corner, again like a traditional?

The sample card I have has all the info on one side; I think it comes from CheapQSL.com's print shop (which, I should mention, does a pretty good job--the card is perfectly nice!). The reverse has the mailing info.

So, can I keep with the traditional postcard format, or do people prefer their QSL cards to have all the relevant info on one side?

My personal preference: put everything on one side, with the other side completely blank. At the top of my own QSL card I have my call in big red letters and my mailing address in a smaller black font. Vertically down the left side, I have "K7KBN" spelled out with international signal flags and pennants, like on a Navy ship.

In the middle and down to the bottom, I have a set of blanks for the QSO information, a brief description of the rig, a blank where I can write "PSE" or "TNX" for QSLing, a 73, and my name.

I got 3000 of these, in black, red, yellow and blue, several years ago - before home computers and near-professional grade home printers. A local printer's apprentice took the job on as a project, so all I had to pay for was the material. $45 was the take-it-home price.

Today, with the limitless resources that a digital camera and a computer have to offer, I've seen some excellent homebrew QSLs, but I've also seen some where the designer just plain overdid it and the resulting card is a lot more confusing than I, personally, care to look at for very long.

Well, I ended up printing out a single sheet of four QSL cards with a two-sided design/format. For those who are interested in the photo (obverse) side of the card, you can see it at http://www.qrz.com/db/AC8HF

The back is like a "traditional" postcard, with a vertical line separating the mailing portion from the portion containing the QSO information, in a little table.

Sadly I neglected to color-correct for the postcard medium, and so the colors are a bit more dull than I'd like--but I'm fairly happy with the result. I think they'll work fine, or at least until I decide to do something different!

The university club station I operated for a few years (VE3UOT, University of Toronto) had a card that looked like a "traditional" QSL card with all the information on the front. The back was an advertisement for the university club building where the station was located. Self-promotion, perhaps, and somewhat gratuitous. Why would a DX station care about the club facilities of a VE station? Yet, that's another way to cram more info on a card.

If you haven't already taken the plunge and gotten your QSL cards ordered/made, I would highly recommend you look to Gennady UX5UO for your cards. Having designed cards for myself and others as well as ordered from several vendors, I can safely say that Gennady's work is top notch and even though he is in the Ukraine (Europe), his prices are very competetive with anything stateside or other places. His response time is almost immediate via email and he can provide assistance and suggestions to improve the layout of your design if you request. His website is "http://www.ux5uoqsl.com/". The cost of 1000 cards is the same or cheaper than most stateside 200 count orders if you take the mulitple of the 200 order costs into consideration. I know personally I will go nowhere else but to Gennady for my QSLcards.

I already bought the postcard stock and printed out a few (just four, but still). I wouldn't say I've committed to this, but I've always preferred to make my own "stuff" when I can. Plus, my degree is in graphic information technology, so it's a good chance for me to practice!

Nice design on the card. Remember, if you are putting a photo and callsign on the front of a card and the QSO information on the back, ALWAYS print your callsign again on the back side with the QSO info. That's so the QSL Manager (or receiving ham) doesn't have to flip the card over and over to check the data. Simple, but appreciated on the other end.

Don't take it personally (it's only my opinion)nut I think it would look a bit nicer withjust the callsign on the front. But hey that's just me.Then of course call, name address on theback, and standard boxes for QSO info.

Oh yeah. Over the box for QSO Date,be sure you put in the format that youwant. Either DD/MM/YY or MM/DD/YY.Europens and most hams use Date-Month-Year,but some American hams use the non world standardMonth-Day-Year.73,, Ken AD6KA/5R8GQ

I have also printed out my own cards and put all the information on the front side.Check out my qrz page please. I get kudos on my design which I did with a little photoshop and a lot of powerpoint.However, I only manage to print out 3 per page. How do you get 4? I use sicsors to cut the cards out of cardstock.-KD8IZZ Ray

I have also printed out my own cards and put all the information on the front side.Check out my qrz page please. I get kudos on my design which I did with a little photoshop and a lot of powerpoint.However, I only manage to print out 3 per page. How do you get 4? I use sicsors to cut the cards out of cardstock.-KD8IZZ Ray

Ray--your QSL cards look nice! Well done.

To get four on a page, I used Avery postcard stock (I don't recall the product number, but Staples and Office Max sell it). Each sheet holds four postcards edge-to-edge, with no "waste" paper. I then used Adobe InDesign with appropriate gutters, since my printer doesn't do edge-printing very well. After putting in a bunch of guides, it was a simple matter of making the design once, then copying it three times.

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